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Posts Tagged ‘Carpend’

“The potential for Senate Republicans to unravel Obamacare this week diminished on Sunday, when two GOP senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Ted Cruz of Texas said their support was unlikely.

Even though the bill drafted by Sens. Lindsey Graham R-S.C. and Bill Cassidy R-La., is on the verge of failure — and may not even get a vote by the end of the month — as long as Republicans control the House, Senate and the White House, attempts may continue to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance plan.

“Hospitals and doctors treating patients on the state payroll are now owed a collective $4.3 billion, Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza highlights in a new report that reflects a “lawless fiscal climate.”

The annual state report for the fiscal year ended June 30 “paints a worsening outlook” for Illinois’ financial future, the comptroller’s office said in a statement.

“Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL) and Downers Grove-based, Advocate Health Care, announced today the creation of a unique health plan that promotes high quality care at a low cost for patients. The plan, BlueCare Direct, is the first of its kind in Illinois for individuals and families, in particular, those who may be highly cost-sensitive healthcare consumers.

Generally, under Employer Shared Responsibility (ESR), applicable large employers (generally, employers with 50 or more full-time employees, including full-time equivalents) face a potential
penalty if they don’t offer minimum essential coverage to full-time employees and their child dependents that has both minimum value (company is paying at least 60 percent of covered health care expenses for a typical population) and is affordable (full-time employees cannot pay more than 9.5 percent of their income for the lowest-cost, self-only coverage). Employers with fewer than 50 full-time employees are not subject to ACA’s ESR provisions. For 2015, employers with between 50 and 99 full-time employees are exempt from the ESR penalty if the employer provides an appropriate certification and meets certain conditions.
In 2015, employers subject to the mandate must offer coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees and child dependents or risk penalties for failure to offer coverage to all full-time employees and child dependents. To avoid a penalty in 2016, employers subject to ACA’s ESR provisions must offer coverage to 95 percent of their full-time employees and child dependents.

“Wikimedia Commons A Staples storefront. Part-time Staples workers are furious that they could be fired for working more than 25 hours a week.

The company implemented the policy to avoid paying benefits under the Affordable Care Act, reports Sapna Maheshwari at Buzzfeed. The healthcare law mandates that workers with more than 30 hours a week receive healthcare.

“The first year for Illinois’ only co-op health insurance program could be charitably termed as troubled. Established as part of Obamacare, Land of Lincoln Healthaimed to increase competition on the state’s new health insurance exchange, but high prices meant it captured just under 2 percent of enrollments.

As it starts its second year, enrollment is up significantly. But the company is still in a hole and the clock is ticking on when it must begin repaying up to $160 million infederal loans.

A Towers Watson survey of 379 companies in that size range found, among other trends, that companies believe in providing health coverage, but want to be able to predict the cost of coverage.

To accomplish both, they are gradually shifting some costs to employees, eliminating some benefits, such as spousal coverage, and encouraging their workers to take more ownership of their health coverage to share in the economic risk of providing coverage.

After years of “Will they or won’t they?” discussion, Walmart is making its long-awaited move into delivering primary care: The retailer has quietly opened a half-dozen primary care clinics across South Carolina and Texas, and plans to launch six more before January.

The clinics will be staffed by nurse practitioners, in a partnership with QuadMed.

Walmart watchers know that the company already has more than 100 “retail clinics” across its stores, a strategy it’s pursued for years. So why fuss over a handful of new clinics?

“Employers are allowed to impose “orientation” periods of up to one month before a maximum 90-day waiting period on the start of health care coverage for new employees, under final health care law reform rules.The rules, issued Friday jointly by the U.S. departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury, finalize and clarify how such orientation periods would work.

Under the final regulations, the one-month orientation period would be calculated by adding one calendar month and subtracting one calendar day, measured from an employee’s starting day.

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2015 Open Enrollment

Here are 4 key dates you should know:

• November 15, 2014. Open Enrollment begins. Apply for, keep, or change your coverage.
• December 15, 2014. Enroll by the 15th if you want new coverage that begins on January 1, 2015. If your plan is changing or you want to change plans, enroll by the 15th to avoid a lapse in coverage.
• December 31, 2014. Coverage ends for 2014 plans. Coverage for 2015 plans can start as soon as January 1st.
• February 15, 2015. This is the last day you can apply for 2015 coverage before the end of Open Enrollment.